Various types of furring channels are disclosed in the prior art and commercially available for securing a structural element, e.g., plywood, composite-board, drywall, etc., to it to form a ceiling for a building. Such furring channels are configured so that they are mountable on a load bearing member, such as a joist. To that end clips are commonly provided. One such clip is the Metal Furring Channel Clip (MFCC), sold by Clarkwestern Dietrich Building Systems, LLC for mounting a hat-shaped furring channel to furr out ceiling assemblies. That clip is particularly constructed for use with a t−1½″ cold rolled channel. That channel is commonly used as a joist and is of a general C-shape having a generally planar top wall, a generally planar bottom wall, and a generally planar sidewall connecting corresponding sides of the top and bottom walls.
Another type of furring channel is a U-shaped member having bottom wall and a pair of spaced-apart sidewalls projecting upward from the bottom wall. Each of the sidewalls terminates at a somewhat narrow inwardly directed, downward angled flange having a free edge. The free edges of the inwardly directed flanges are spaced apart by a width that is less than the width separating the sidewalls. The MFCC of Clarkwestern Dietrich Building Systems, LLC is not suitable for mounting that type of furring channel to a t−1½″ cold rolled load-bearing member. Thus, a need exists for a clip that can be used to mount or suspend that type of furring channel from a load-bearing member, be it a t−1½″ cold rolled load-bearing member or some other elongated load-bearing member having an upper surface on which the clip can be disposed. Moreover, a need exists for a precursor for a such a clip, wherein the precursor is in the form of a flat blank or sheet of material of a desired profile and which can be readily folded on site by a user to form the clip. The present invention addresses that need. In addition, the precursor and clip enable one to make use of methods of this invention to readily form the clip and readily attach it to the load-bearing member and to the furring channel to mount the furring channel on the load-bearing member